Had they been holding yarn, they likely would have dropped that, too. Instead, it was a basketball they fumbled about the court to fumble away a surprising opportunity against the challenging Nuggets without co-captains Steve Nash and Grant Hill.

Despite holding out their leaders and digging a 10-0 hole, the score was tied in the third quarter. But the Suns committed nine turnovers over the final eight minutes of the quarter to fall behind by 16 en route to a 109-92 loss at Pepsi Center.

Denver was missing more starters because of actual injuries -- Danilo Gallinari (ankle), Nene (calf) and Timofey Mozgov (ankle) -- but still dominated to hand the Suns their seventh loss of 16 or more points. The Suns are 10-25 without Nash since 2004.

"Peyton Manning didn't play tonight," Jared Dudley said, likening Nash to the Indianapolis Colts quarterback who missed this past NFL season because of a neck injury. "When Peyton Manning didn't play, you saw what the Colts' record was, right?

Neither team handled the ball well, but Denver was far more efficient. The Nuggets shot 52 percent, accumulating 54 points in the paint. The Suns shot a season-worst 33 percent from the field and committed 21 turnovers.

The Suns started a backcourt that was not with the team when training camp began -- Ronnie Price and Michael Redd -- and allowed Denver to score on each possession, also failing to score on each possession to trail 10-0.

From there, the Suns battled back in an unfamiliar way. The Suns, ranked 29th in in rebounding, grabbed 14 offensive rebounds in the first half for 16 second-chance points to only two by Denver (17-12). That was enough to keep the Suns (12-17) close along with 6-for-12 3-point shooting that made Denver's halftime lead 58-51.

Denver was shooting 61.5 percent at that stage, and the Suns were just 29.3 percent on 2-point shots.

Redd and rookie Markieff Morris carried the offense. Redd opened the third quarter with a 3-point play and two 3s to tie the score at 62 with 8:47 to go in the quarter.

The Suns then disintegrated first on offense and later on defense to wind up down 86-70 to start the fourth. Phoenix committed nine turnovers and shot 5 for 16 from the field during that 24-8 Nuggets run.

The Suns opened the fourth with two more turnovers and another of Denver's 13 blocked shots.

The Suns have the unenviable task of salvaging a back-to-back-to-back set in the final game after two losses. The Suns play Atlanta at home tonight with Nash and Hill expected to return.

"We're used to Steve creating, and he's not there," Dudley said. "So now it's got to be other guys doing that. For us to win, I told everybody we had to have four or five guys in double figures. We can't have just two guys with big numbers. We're not talented enough. The ball has to move and the ball didn't move."

We weren't playing selfless basketball. The ball was sticking."

Denver, the league's highest scoring team, put seven scorers in double figures and had another two players score nine.

"We're still fighting the whole consistency thing where we don't know what we're going to get night in and night out," Gentry said. "That's the toughest thing."

Morris set a season high in scoring for the second time in the past three games, tallying 21 points before fouling out. Redd, starting in Hill's place, posted his first 20-point game since January 2010.

View from press row

If there was a rookie wall, Markieff Morris just ran through it. Morris has posted three consecutive double-digit scoring games for the first time. He had a 14-game stretch of 29.7 percent shooting before this but never wavered, becoming more active in the past three games. But on a night such as Tuesday when he was a rare good offensive option for Phoenix, he can't continue to be a frequent fouler. He committed five fouls in his first 21 minutes.